Review: Kings

RECOMMENDED
Ireland’s entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar, “Kings,” largely shot in Irish Gaelic, centers on Colm Meaney upon the reunion of several Gaelic-speaking laborers who don’t fit into latter-day London. It’s based on Jimmy Murphy’s play “Kings of the Kilbrun High Road,” but the gratifying rounds of chat and bilingual bother engage without becoming unduly theatrical or confined-seeming. The device of a reunion of the survivors among seven men who immigrated to London thirty years earlier is solid. Drunk and sober thoughts flow. Director Tom Collins makes fair play of the immigration theme that grows more pronounced in every culture. With Donal O’Kelly, Brendan Conroy, Barry Barnes, Donncha Crowley. 88m. (Ray Pride)